The present disclosure relates generally to sensing methods and a nanosensing system for performing the same.
Since the inception of semiconductor technology, a consistent trend has been toward the development of smaller device dimensions and higher device densities. As a result, nanotechnology has seen explosive growth and generated considerable interest. Nanotechnology is centered on the fabrication and application of nano-scale structures, or structures having dimensions that are often 50 to 100 times smaller than conventional semiconductor structures. Generally, nano-scale structures have at least one linear dimension ranging from about 1 nm to about 100 nm.
Nano-scale structures have been employed as chemical and/or biological sensors in a wide variety of implementations, often operating by transducing adsorption of a species onto a target surface into an electrical, optical or mechanical signal. Nanowires are wire-like structures that are included in the category of nano-scale structures. Nanowires are suitable for use in a variety of nano-scale devices, such as nano-scale field effect transistors (FETs), p-n diodes, light emitting diodes (LEDs) and nanowire-based sensors, to name a few. Generally, nano-scale sensors are optimized for detecting specific species by specific preparation of the adsorption surface, for example, by coating the surface with specific receptors. However, the use of nanosensors as commercial devices remains limited, in many cases, by the differential specificity that individual sensors exhibit toward different chemical species.